


if you only say the word

by nothingunrealistic



Series: this human heart (built with this human flaw) [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12264780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingunrealistic/pseuds/nothingunrealistic
Summary: Jared knows where the letter really came from, but he's never gotten the chance to read it.Not until now, when it's been published for the world to see.





	if you only say the word

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly different kind of post-Good For You Fic. Set after chapter 4 of "(and i don't know) how i would even start."
> 
> Content warning: discussions of/allusions to suicide and attempted suicide throughout.
> 
> Fic title from "You Will Be Found."

Jared is lying on his bed staring at the ceiling when his phone buzzes.

He’s been in that position ever since he got back from school — for an hour or two — and really isn’t in the mood to text back. Hard to believe anyone would be texting him now anyway. Not his mom, since she’s just downstairs and would yell up in his general direction first if she wanted something from him. Not likely to be anyone from camp, considering none of them responded to his initial “hey, this is Jared, just wanted to let you know” messages from September. Probably not — well. Definitely not Evan.

They may be “family friends,” but “family friends” isn’t nearly enough to motivate most people to text someone who not three hours ago told them to fuck off and called them an asshole.

(Jared doesn’t really know what they are now. Or what they were, before. Or when “before” became “now.”)

But it’s worth checking anyway.

Rolling over to his nightstand, Jared grabs his glasses and hastily shoves them on with one hand — he’d taken them off when he got home, since most ceilings look pretty much the same whether you can see them clearly or not — and picks up his phone with the other. When he clicks it on, he sees on the lockscreen (a picture of his cat) that it’s not a text, or an email (he’s had enough of those for a while), but a Facebook notification. From the Connor Project page, informing him that Alana Beck has made a new post.

Well. This should be interesting. Especially considering that he’s been watching the page for the past several days, somehow still an admin and the treasurer despite not having done a thing for the project in over two weeks, and he’s fairly certain she’s posted every single one of Evan and Connor’s emails. (Evan’s and Jared’s emails.) What’s left to show off to the world?

He taps the notification, enters his passcode (3826), and waits for the app to open. Maybe the Kickstarter has finally achieved its goal of manipulating the suburban moms who use Facebook for posting shitty passive-aggressive Minion memes into giving up fifty thousand dollars collectively and Alana is celebrating. Or maybe Evan has decided to try writing emails on his own to placate the Murphys a little longer, although Jared would be astonished if he had figured out how to do the backdating on his own.

The post isn’t either of those things, or an inspirational video, or another bare Kickstarter link. Instead, it’s a single paragraph and a picture of a single page of text.

 _Dear Connor Project Community,_ the paragraph begins. _Connor’s note is a message to all of us. Share it with as many people as you can. Post it everywhere._

Jared nearly drops his phone in shock, but manages to catch it before it hits his bedspread and reads the first four sentences again. Connor’s note — as in Evan’s weird self-help/sex letter that the Murphys somehow decided was Connor’s last words? Why would Evan have actually showed this to Alana? And why the hell would she have posted it?

 _If you’ve ever felt alone like Connor, then please consider making a donation to The Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard,_ it continues. _No amount is too small._ That answers the second question, at least. He’s pretty sure posting what’s supposedly someone’s suicide note on the internet for the world to see is one of those things that you’re not supposed to do, especially if you’re doing it to get money from people. But then again, helping someone fabricate emails to and from a dead guy who was supposedly his best friend is probably also one of those things you’re not supposed to do. Even if you’re doing it so they’ll actually want you around.

None of that explains why Evan gave it to Alana in the first place, though. After all, he never showed the letter to Jared. Explained that it was a therapy assignment and denied that it was a sex thing, sure. (He hadn’t actually mentioned the therapy part until about the sixth time Jared had called it a sex letter. That conversation had ended pretty quickly.) Wondered if Connor would show it to anyone else, definitely. Let Jared actually read it so he could figure out what exactly he was supposed to be emulating in the emails? Out of the question, apparently.

Tens of thousands of people know what it says now, but not where it really came from. Jared knows exactly where it came from, but has no idea what it says, not yet. A situation he plans to correct.

Jared taps on the picture and stares at the screenshotted text, trying to make out what exactly this thing says that it would be mistaken for someone’s final thoughts.

 _Dear Evan Hansen,_ says the first line. Well, he could have guessed that. _It turns out, this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year. Because… why would it be?_

Huh. No offense to Evan’s writing skills, or Evan’s therapist, but this doesn’t seem like a particularly, well, therapeutic sentiment so far. (Okay, maybe some offense to Evan’s therapist.) Jared reads on.

 _Oh I know. Because there’s Zoe. And all my hope is pinned on Zoe. Who I don’t even know and who doesn’t know me. But maybe if I did. Maybe if I could just talk to her, then maybe…_ Wow, Evan, good job manic pixie dream girl-ing the shit out of the crazy guy’s sister. (Who he’s _dating_ now, somehow. Jared can still barely believe it, or even think about it.) No wonder Connor had been pissed enough to steal the letter. Evan hadn’t mentioned how he’d explained it to the Murphys, and Jared doubts he really wants to know what lies Evan told about that part.

_…maybe nothing would be different at all._

_I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of… something. I wish that anything I said… mattered, to anyone. I mean, face it: would anyone even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?_

_Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend, Me._

Wait, what?

Frowning, Jared studies the last paragraph again. These words he recognizes, of course — from the beginning, the Connor Project revolved around telling people that they mattered and were a part of something and would be noticed if they disappeared, but he’s always figured they were just vague bullshit platitudes Evan and Alana had come up with to justify keeping the Connor story going and asking for thousands of dollars to reopen an orchard. Reassuring to hear, sure, but not rooted in anything real.

But these words… they’re real. They’re genuine. If Jared is honest with himself — as rare as that is — they’re kind of terrifying.

Reading the whole thing a second time, and a third, doesn’t help. Some phrases stick in Jared’s mind and won’t come loose. _This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year. Because… why would it be?_ _I wish that everything was different. I mean, face it: would anyone even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?_

He and Evan wrote the emails expecting them to be read, by the Murphys if not by thousands of intrusive weirdos with internet connections. Unless you count his therapist, Evan wrote this thinking no one else would ever see it.

_He’s going to ruin your life with it._

And then, as if his brain hasn’t been enough of a dick to him today, Jared remembers Evan on the first day of school, the day he wrote this, explaining how he broke his arm.

“I was, um, well I was climbing a tree and I fell. …Well, except it’s a funny story, because there was this solid ten minutes after I fell, when I just lay there on the ground waiting for someone to come get me. Any second now, I kept saying to myself. Any second now, here they come. …Nobody came. That’s the, that’s what’s funny.”

_Would anyone even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?_

_For sure. I mean, I would._

Another memory: Evan retelling his first incredibly awkward dinner with the Murphys, the one that fucked everything up, and mentioning that he’d tried to change the story about Connor shoving him in the hallway (which, now that Jared thinks about it, was kind of his fault), somehow not remembering that Zoe had literally been right there. He’d said he’d tripped. An immediately obvious lie.

One more time, Jared reads the letter, Evan’s words from their conversations now bouncing around in his brain alongside Evan’s words from the screen. Gradually, the pieces fall into place, slotting together like the world’s most upsetting game of Tetris, and suddenly all the rows are cleared.

Of course the Murphys are convinced this was Connor’s note, despite everything Evan tried to tell them, and not just because it’s addressed to Evan. It reads like the ramblings of someone who wishes they weren’t alive anymore because — well. Because that’s what it is. What it was.

Because, Jared is suddenly sure, Evan didn’t just fall out of that tree, any more than he just tripped in that hallway.

And what did Jared do? What has he done to Evan, over and over again? Laughed in his face, told him they weren’t really friends, tried to push him away, always scared that Evan would do just that to him first given the chance, if not worse. He’s seen how well that strategy works. _(So maybe the only reason you talk to me, Jared, is because you don’t have any other friends.)_

_(I could tell everyone everything.)_

“Don’t be stupid,” he says aloud, not able to force himself to care if his parents hear him talking to himself. “You couldn’t have known.” His voice is too loud in the silence of his bedroom, but it’s not loud enough to drown out the voices in his head, saying _you’re a fucking idiot_ and _you really are alone now, aren’t you?_ and _thousands of people have read this_ and _how could you not know?_

How could he not have known?

Jared’s phone drops from his hand again, the screen now dim but not yet dark, and bounces off the mattress and onto the floor.

When he’d argued with Evan — when he’d yelled at Evan, desperate to stay in control just a little longer, and Evan had yelled right back at him, aggressive and genuinely angry in a way he’d never seen before — Jared had tried not to cry, not wanting to make it obvious how much he cared about this boy, with his stupid polo shirts and his tree knowledge, with his stunningly bright and far too rare smiles, who everyone else used to look right through. He hadn’t really succeeded, but he had tried.

He doesn’t bother trying now. There’s no one here who would see him.

**Author's Note:**

> Gotta love that deliberate recurring motif of Evan falling, am I right?
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @nothingunrealistic.


End file.
